The Wind Carried Away The Cotton Wool by Charles Joseph

For Federico Garcia Lorca

When in Spain I touched a cobblestone
touched by the blood of martyrs
and never did I imagine
that the work of a bevy of bullets
could strike my soul with so much force
traveling all the way to me from the past
but it did, and it still does.

So since I can easily be erased
and you can easily be erased
I’m sure we can all agree
that a poetic death doesn’t really exist
regardless of how much a country
tries to whitewash their history.

Because sooner or later
a beautiful museum will be erected
and it will be filled with all of
the bones they’ve collected
and tickets will be sold by the pound
because a good old fashioned
death is a joy forever —
until you are the one who’s been
blindfolded and murdered.